INGENIEUR
Historically , the growth of peak demand from 2015 to 2019 is 16,822MW – 18,566MW , or at 2.5 % per annum . For the year 2020 to 2030 , peak demand is projected to grow by 1.8 % p . a .
Understanding the Impact of Disruptive Technologies
Since the start of the Industrial Revolution more than 250 years ago , the global economy has been on a steep growth trajectory propelled by a series of advances in technology , as shown in Figure 6 .
From steam power engines that replaced water mills , to electricity , telephones , automobiles , airplanes , transistors , computers and the Internet , each new wave of technological advancement has brought about surges in productivity and economic growth , enabling efficient new methods for performing existing tasks and giving rise to entirely new types of business . General purpose technologies such as Steam Power can be applied across economies with massive and disruptive effects . So too can the Internal Combustion Engine , Electricity and the Internet .
Today many rapidly evolving potentially disruptive technologies are appearing on the horizon , spanning information technologies , biological sciences , material science , energy , and other fields .
Table 1 lists the 12 most potentially economically disruptive technologies that will affect billions of consumers , hundreds of millions of workers , and trillions of dollars of economic activities across industries by 2030 [ Ref . 3 ].
From the above-mentioned disruptive technologies highlighted in the McKinsey Global Institute publication , we are of the opinion that four of these will directly impact the Malaysian electricity supply industry ( MESI ). The four disruptive technologies that can significantly transform the future MESI business environment are :
1 . Renewable Energy Solar PV ( high variability and uncertainty ) 2 . Energy Storage System ( high efficiency ) 3 . Smart Grid with Knowledge Automation 4 . Internet-of-Things Conventional electricity , supplied by power utilities worldwide for consumer use , is the Alternating Current ( AC ) type , at either 50Hz or 60Hz . As it must be consumed once it is generated , at any point in time the demand for it must be balanced exactly and simultaneously by its generation so that the 50 Hertz system frequency is maintained at all times .
The science , engineering and technology platform underpinning the electricity supply industry ( ESI ) has been steadily powering growth and transforming the economies of nations . The ESI powering the growth of each nation , including Malaysia , has been achieved through conventional well-planned centralised large-scale fossil-fuelled electricity generating stations and the associated high-voltage national power grid comprising the transmission and distribution network . This national power grid is highly robust , secure and reliable in terms of demand ( load ) dispatch and delivery to consumers — either industrial , commercial or residential . The ESI has not experienced any real disruptive business environment then or now , even though electronic data processing / number-crunching software algorithms of computing technologies have become extremely powerful in inverse relation to its physical hardware size .
However , future energy / electricity grid systems , including those in Malaysia , will need to have high levels of “ flexibility ” and “ smartness ” embedded in them in order to accommodate the variability and uncertainty in this electricity demand-generation balance due to the anticipated substantial growth of renewable variable generation ( VG ), principally solar photovoltaic ( PV ) resources . Wind power resources in Malaysia is very small and insignificant compared to solar PV .
2 . NATIONAL ENERGY AGENDA : Questions of Security , Affordability , and Sustainability
As asserted in the section “ Understanding Electricity Demand-Generation Balance ”, keeping the electricity demand-generation balance at all times for 24 / 7 and 365 days , co-ordinated from the National Control Room Load Dispatch Centre ( NLDC , KL ), is ultimately the sole objective of Malaysia ’ s energy security .
Associated with this energy security , the Government must also address the other two pillars
52 VOL 86 APRIL-JUNE 2021